The remains of his shoes, he realized, were adorning Meadowlark’s small feet. He could see the toes of her right foot peeking out through a hole in the seam.
Foxbrush looked down at his nakedness and the ooze that covered his torso and arms. “What am I to wear?” he asked, a little desperate.
“Why, those of course, if you want them. They’re still quite good enough for wearing, if not so fine as they were,” Redman said. “Or we’ll provide you with something more comfortable if you like. But look here . . .”
He reached out to the pile and took something from its depths. It was the scroll, a little battered but still in one piece. Redman unrolled it, scanning up and down the page. Surely such a wild beast of a man would not understand the content therein! But Redman’s eyes—or at least the good one that Foxbrush could see—were intent, and his mouth moved a little as he struggled with the words.
The stranger turned to Foxbrush, holding up the scroll. “You had this writing on you. I can almost make it out, but it has been such a long time, and I have never been good with my letters. Tell me, is it yours?”
Foxbrush nodded. It was too dark in the room for him to clearly see the verses of the ballad, but he recognized the scroll well enough.
“Is it a message?” Redman persisted. “From the North Country, perhaps?”
“No,” Foxbrush said, shaking his head. “No, it’s mine. My cousin gave it to me.”
“Your cousin?” Redman, shaking his head with some perplexity, allowed the scroll to roll up with a snap. “And you can read this?”
“Of course.” Foxbrush wondered if he dared swipe the scroll from Redman’s hands. It was a tempting if perhaps futile thought. After all, Redman was many times his height and girth, and he wasn’t sticky with medicinal sap.
“You can read North Country writing?” Redman persisted.
“I . . . I’m not certain what you’re asking,” Foxbrush said, his voice a little petulant. Sap and fear had this effect on him. “When you say North Country, do you mean Parumvir?”
Redman chewed thoughtfully on the end of his mustache. “Parumvir,” he said, tasting the strange name. “Parumvir . . . Smallman.” Then he chuckled, and his good eye twinkled. “Very well, my friend. I have been away for some while, and I’m game for a change. So tell me, do you read the writing of Parumvir?”
Foxbrush nodded slowly but couldn’t help adding, “It’s not Parumvir writing. It’s Southlander.”
“Southlander?” Redman tapped the scroll absently against his own drawn-up knee. “Not a message for me from King Florien, then, eh?”
Foxbrush shook his head.
“And are you from . . . from Parumvir?”
“No. I’m—” He hesitated, and his sticky body suddenly went clammy with sweat. Did he dare, in this strange wherever-he-was, tell anyone his true identity? After all, one didn’t like to blurt out in a houseful of savages, “I’m the crown prince! Unhand me at once!” So he licked his lips, tasting sugary sap with a bitter aftertaste of some herb he did not recognize.
“Don’t eat it,” said the girl, stepping forward and shaking a finger under his nose. Foxbrush recoiled from her as though she were armed, once more seeing Daylily all over that otherwise unknown little face.
“Don’t bully him, Lark,” Redman said, and she drew back beside her father. “Now,” said he, “who did you say you are?”
“Um. Foxbrush,” said that unfortunate prince. “I’m Foxbrush. May I have my scroll?”
Redman held it out, but though Foxbrush took the end of it, he did not release his hold. “And you’re not from around here, are you, Foxbrush? Despite your name and your face, you aren’t a man of the Hidden Land.”
“Hidden Land?” Foxbrush whispered. Then a thought that had been nudging at the corner of his brain since Redman first spoke suddenly prodded its way into prominence. His eyes widened and his voice rose. “Lumé have mercy! Did you say the Eldest’s House?”
“Yes,” Redman replied. “Eldest Sight-of-Day is not home to make you welcome. We look for her return this evening, and then she’ll decide what’s to be done with you.”
“She?” Foxbrush’s head spun, and he had not the awareness of mind to catch the sharp expression Redman shot his way. “The Eldest is a woman? Where am I?”
“The natives call it the Land,” Redman replied, his smile a little cold this time. “It is known in more distant realms as the South Land, however, being the southernmost peninsula of the western continent.” He watched the play of shadows and lights trickling through the wall cracks move across Foxbrush’s face. “But you know that already, don’t you?”
Foxbrush felt Redman’s stare and the equally compelling stare of his daughter. His mouth went dry with rising panic. “This is Southlands?”
“The South Land, yes.”